For some parents and their little girls, a dance studio and its waiting room are familiar for a moment in time — a class session, or until she outgrows her first pair of tap shoes. But these six girls have Down syndrome, so when the studio began offering a special needs dance group in 2002 — a rare but welcomed opportunity — the space became a treasured meeting place where they and their mothers have gathered weekly for the past 10 years.

There, the six friends have seen one another grow from third-graders to high school graduates. They've made one another laugh through heartbreaks and celebrated each other's successes in a friendship that has spilled over to regular sleepovers, text messages and birthday parties.

These days, using routines practiced weekly at Center Stage, the special needs dance team performs six to eight times each year before audiences of thousands at Chicago-area stadiums and theaters. The dancers bring crowds to tears with their moves — choreographed to "Perfect" by Pink, or "Born this Way" by Lady Gaga — and a message of believing anything is possible and being proud of who you are.

And for their mothers, the weekly dance classes have become a much-needed lifeline, a place where they could ask each other for help with Social Security paperwork, share frustrations about challenges that come with raising a special needs child or just enjoy a carefree hour with a friend at the nearby dollar store.

"If these four walls could talk," said Linda Smarto, standing in the room painted navy blue and decorated with framed photographs of leotard-wearing dancers, including her daughter, Julia.

"We all had the same dreams, hopes and values in raising our children. We all wanted to set the sky as the limit," Smarto said.

It was Smarto who first suggested a special needs dance group when then-8-year-old Julia seemed to be falling behind in her dance class at Center Stage.

Although Smarto and her husband usually favored inclusion in regular classes for their daughter, they also didn't want Julia's love for dance to be ruined by the more competitive dance parents.

"I remember feeling intimidated," Smarto said. "She was doing well, but you could just feel the eye stares of, 'Is she going to be off? Is she going to ruin the routine?'"

Smarto asked Schwaner if she might consider starting a special needs dance group, not realizing that Schwaner had a master's degree in special education and a brother with Down syndrome.

Schwaner didn't hesitate: "If you get me the students, I'll do it."

Using her background in special education, Schwaner was adamant from the beginning about how classes would be conducted. The girls would be treated like any other students at the studio, expected to practice and compete at competitions across the Chicago area.

But her background also made her sensitive to issues that a regular dance instructor might not be prepared for. For example, bending over for certain dance moves occasionally can cause dancers to spit up, because some people with Down syndrome have reduced tone in their esophageal muscles. The ability to communicate orally also can vary widely; Schwaner knows sign language.

Within weeks, Smarto had recruited mothers she met at early intervention therapies for their daughters. Those mothers invited other mothers with daughters who had Down syndrome and had been looking for such an opportunity.

The group was born.

"When I found out there was a teacher who respected them so much to count on them to do everything she expected everyone else to do — to come on time, hair up, costumes, makeup? For that, I would drive twice as far," said Karen Neville, whose daughter Kelly is part of the dance group.

"Seeing everyone there is real nice, and they're wonderful," added Kelly, 22. "They're really funny. It's like a total riot."

While the girls took to one another and their new class quickly, Schwaner worked hard outside the group's one-hour sessions to ensure its success.

Within the studio, she promoted the special needs dance group, arranging showcases with fellow dance instructors in which one class would show off its routine to another, and vice versa.

Before dance competitions, Schwaner called judges at home to make sure they would treat her special needs team fairly and that people would not be unkind to them.

"I was putting them on this public podium," Schwaner said. "I had a lot of tears about how people would treat them."